Unlocking Short Sales: Expert Insights from Jenny Olson-Paden

Dylan Silver (00:01.754)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a short sale specialist helping homeowners navigate complex deals across Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and other areas. Please welcome Jenny Olson-Paden to the show. Jenny, welcome to the show.

Jenny Olson-Paden (00:20.128)
Hey, thanks. You got my name right. I’m proud of you.

Dylan Silver (00:21.624)
It is. Yeah, we got the name right, right? It’s great to have you on here, Jenny. I am an agent in Dallas. I’ve looked into the short sale and actually you have the certification that I was looking at getting through through NAR. But it’s an interesting space to be a part of. Right. I think very needed. I also think a lot of agents and other people maybe keep our arms length because of how complex it is. Right.

Jenny Olson-Paden (00:48.174)
Yeah, if I had a dollar for every time somebody told me I will never do a short sale again or I’m referring everything to you, I’d be a very rich woman.

Dylan Silver (00:57.304)
Yeah, it’s difficult. you mentioned that before hopping on here that you had some, I would say, exposure to it because a family was involved in real estate and you had seen many of these happen during the crash in 2008.

Jenny Olson-Paden (01:11.852)
Yeah, so I had run a family, we owned a family run pet store and it was really difficult during that time. You know, we started actually before, it’s hard to believe we started before Amazon was even a thing. Like it was unheard of for dog food to be delivered. And so as things kind of progressed and the economy got worse, we had a lot of our clients that were in the process of losing their house. It got to the point where almost every morning I would show up and there’d be something on my, like on my front door.

know there’d be birds there’d be dogs cats fish you name it it would be there and it was because and then I get notes hey you know we’re losing our house you’re the only one we trust will you please take care of our pet and so it was very

It was very just kind of telling of what was going down. then of course, that then translated as business was failing. We really struggled with our home. then thankfully, my mom was in real estate. She’d been doing kind of cash for keys and helping in foreclosures for a few years. And so she was helping us kind of navigate trying to keep our house. And then when I started, so she called me out of the blue after we had closed the pet store. And she’s like, Hey, I need a marketing person. Are you interested? She’s like, it’s only a

hours a week and I’m like sure first week it was a couple hours after that I don’t think I’ve ever done less than like 40 hours a week but I knew going in that as soon as we started talking real estate I knew that short sale was where I was gonna want to be.

Dylan Silver (02:43.748)
And so how long have you been in the short sale space, if you will?

Jenny Olson-Paden (02:47.822)
So I started admin work in 12, marketing and admin work in 12, and then got my license in the beginning of 13.

Dylan Silver (02:56.56)
So gosh, there’s gotta be no one more adept in short sales than you, who I’m talking to right now, right?

Jenny Olson-Paden (03:03.022)
There’s quite a, there’s a handful of us that really like are shy. I call myself a short sale nerd. I’m really fun at parties. Let me tell you, I can talk to people about short sales nonstop. But yeah, there’s some really great people in the industry, but then there’s a lot of people that still want to learn about it.

Dylan Silver (03:20.346)
You know what’s interesting and I’m nerding out a bit here myself is is the the short sale world is even granular for most people who are involved in even like distressed real estate. So like I’m a wholesaler got my real estate license earlier this year but working in the short sale spaces it’s it’s it’s different legal process you having to understand connections with the banks from what I understand and then

Jenny Olson-Paden (03:24.663)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (03:49.102)
you have to be able to of course still find these listings so to speak. It’s this whole process into itself.

Jenny Olson-Paden (03:56.109)
Yeah.

It is something that has taken some time to perfect and it’s amazing to me how much changes. I I really thought the beginning of this year that there was not a lot more that I could learn. And even just as we’ve gotten bigger, I mean, as the economy has kind of done what it’s done and we’re seeing all of these short sales and foreclosures come down the pipeline, I’ve learned so much. We’ve redefined our systems and it’s like, I keep thinking that I’m not going to learn something new every day and I do.

you

Dylan Silver (04:27.524)
I think what’s interesting about when we talk about working with investors and short sale and even wholesale, is what I’m still involved in and what I was involved in before I became a real estate agent, you’re having to problem solve. There’s no question about it. But oftentimes, don’t think anything negatively about real estate agents because I am a real estate agent, but oftentimes I think once you get a certain level of

problem solving, it becomes like, don’t wanna deal with it, arm’s length, I don’t want any part of it, that’s you, that’s you. But you’re dealing with so many of these, you even said like, other people are like, I never wanna do one of those again. What was it about it that said, you know what, even though it is a lot of this, I actually like this and this is what I’m passionate about.

Jenny Olson-Paden (05:13.15)
I think it’s a couple of different things. mean, obviously, had I not had my mom to turn to when we were going through what we were going through, it would have been a whole different story. And I love, I mean, one of my words is just advocating. I love advocating for people and this actually gives me the ability to do it for my career. And so when somebody comes to me and they truly need help and they want to help themselves.

It’s a very cool relationship and being able to build that and then build the relationships within the banks and the trustees and the different lien holders. I mean, it’s just, it’s a great experience. I wouldn’t trade it.

Dylan Silver (05:48.87)
Can we get a little granular here, Jenny? Maybe don’t give away all the gold, but give away some of it. So I want to ask you about the relationships with the banks. My very much 1,000 foot view zoomed out is that in order for all these deals to be successful, yeah, helps to know, you need to know how the process works, but you really, more important than anything, is you need a relationship with the banks. So.

Jenny Olson-Paden (05:53.755)
Okay.

Jenny Olson-Paden (06:13.646)
Yep. Yeah, I need that.

Dylan Silver (06:16.676)
So building that, what was that like? Did you have maybe connections that were pre-existing to the banks? Or how does one even go about setting that type of thing up?

Jenny Olson-Paden (06:27.51)
Man, so there has been some really just kind of fun stories and relationships I’ve been able to develop. I’m a big believer in always being kind, even if somebody is just like railing on you, always being kind. And so that has gone, that has gone very far. I always try to do something like send them if I can, like send them a little Starbucks gift card when we get something done or write them a good review with their manager. And it’s, I’ve been doing this long enough now that people will remember me. And so it is, it’s, it’s been

fun that I’ll have a negotiator that I’ll be with. I’ll be like, hey, we did that one deal. You remember how crazy it was? And they’re like, my gosh, yes, totally. And it has been very good. I had a situation where it’s one of the only, I think I’ve only fired two clients in my career. And it was one where there was just a lot going on with this client. They would call me and they’d be very nice. And then they called the negotiator and they would just.

I mean, like, cuss her out like nobody’s business. And it finally got to the point where I couldn’t deal with just the amount of profanity I was hearing when she was then calling me and doing that.

Dylan Silver (07:36.39)
Yeah.

Jenny Olson-Paden (07:37.454)
So fast forward, I mean, the deal, fire, I fire the client and, I let the negotiator know and I’m like, Hey, you know, it’s, it’s been great. Da da da da da. Two years later, my phone rings and it’s the negotiator. And she’s like, you sent me a thank you card. I kept your card and I knew someday I was going to buy a house and I wanted you to be my agent. And so I was able to actually got to know her husband or daughter and we sold her a house. gosh, probably about five years ago. So just that constant.

kindness and just recognizing that yeah this might not be a great situation for anybody involved but we’re in it together and we’re going to kind of collaborate has really just done wonders for me. I do the same thing with the trustees and some of the lien holders.

Dylan Silver (08:23.832)
I think we’re talking about we’re talking about the marketing, the relationships, the X’s and O’s. And it gets even deeper than this, right? Because because short sales are so complex. How often are you finding people who are really like back up against the wall type of thing, and they may be even facing foreclosure, maybe in the next like 30 to 60 days type of thing versus where they kind of know, hey, we’re behind, or maybe we’re going to be getting behind.

We’re not in an equitable position and we gotta be proactive. How much of it is the proactive versus the back against the wall type of thing?

Jenny Olson-Paden (09:00.344)
I’d say right now it’s about 50-50. So I do work with, when I do work with investors that are out there door knocking, they’ll find somebody that has a date set and then we’ll see if we can get that date stopped. 30 to 60 days is usually like pie in the sky. That would be amazing. I have had hours to try to get sales stopped. Hours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (09:20.838)
hours. You can do that? I’m talking to a magician then. This is amazing. This is amazing.

Jenny Olson-Paden (09:29.678)
this in 19, or let’s see in 19, in 2020, I think it was 22, I stopped 97 foreclosure sales. And my, my shortest one was 15 minutes after the sale happened. And so that was, I was, and it was literally just a, everybody working together to get this done. And it was a very, it was a house that they would have lost $300,000 in equity.

had it foreclosed. And so it was insane, but we got it done. that was like, I was three away from 100, so was so stressed out. like, I cannot believe, it was only 97. But you know, in the whole scheme of things, 97 foreclosures stopped was pretty impressive.

Dylan Silver (10:16.888)
Jenny, I have a amazing level of respect for you and this conversation because I know how hard it is and I’ve spoken with, I’ve spoken with many, probably five plus real estate agents and brokers who specifically, who are specifically working with distressed and they are basically at a loss for how to stop when it is that down to the wire. And you’re talking, you said hours away.

Jenny Olson-Paden (10:41.058)
Yep.

Jenny Olson-Paden (10:44.579)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, I’ve stopped within hours and that’s a lot of it. can think on my relationship. mean, building those relationships. You know, if a trustee sees that I’m going to be putting in a contract or working with a group of investors that they know are solid, that means a lot as opposed to, you know, we have people that try to bully their way through the process and, you know, that’s not going to win friends or influence anybody, you know. So just being kind and being consistent and being

know, showing that you’re going to do right by people, I think does wonders. And yeah.

Dylan Silver (11:20.614)
I want to pivot a little bit here and ask you from the bank perspective, if we can take their perspective for a minute, they’re going to get their money at auction, right? I mean, the home’s at auction, they’re selling at auction, now it’s digital, right? Or is it from their perspective, we’re not going to get the money, let’s go short sale because we don’t know what’s going to happen at auction, we could lose our shirt at the auction.

Jenny Olson-Paden (11:43.82)
Yeah, think it’s I think it fluctuates. you know, sometimes you can get some great deals at auctions. Sometimes you can’t. And so sometimes if from the bank perspective, they might be able to make their money or they might have to reabsorb that house. I mean, a lot of times when you go to auction, you’ll see it revert to the beneficiary. You’ll see it go back to the bank because they can’t get a bid high enough. And that’s just going to sit on their books sometimes. And then, you know, it kind of depends on what the situation is. If they have a ton of properties on their books that they don’t want

to be maintaining, then they’re going to be more likely to do a short sale. So I think it kind of ebbs and flows as things go on in the economy.

Dylan Silver (12:22.8)
I also briefly want to talk about the scale of foreclosures and people who are losing their homes for a variety of reasons. I think most people aren’t aware of just how many people this happens to every single month. If we just took Texas, the number would be like astronomical for people to comprehend. they’re not, some of them may be hugely distressed, but some of them could be new homes, new homes.

Jenny Olson-Paden (12:50.99)
Yeah. Have you? Go ahead.

Dylan Silver (12:52.154)
You know, and so I don’t, I don’t know as far as how many, it’s gotta be like thousands a month just in Texas. And then you’re talking Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma. These are like tens of maybe tens of thousands of people every month in those three states who are, or maybe that number 10,000 that are losing their home.

Jenny Olson-Paden (13:05.473)
Yeah.

Jenny Olson-Paden (13:14.978)
Yeah, and we’re going to see more. mean, and that’s that’s the thing. mean, like partial claims. I don’t know. Have you done much with partial claims or has that? OK, so this is where I’m going to totally nerd out somewhere. I’m warning you. OK, so partial claims, they happened a lot in, you know, eight, nine and ten. They happened kind of again in like fifteen and sixteen, and then they happened a lot during covid. And so what the partial claim is, is it’s a individual loan from HUD that is slapped onto the back of your loan.

Dylan Silver (13:21.818)
I know nothing, I know nothing about it.

Jenny Olson-Paden (13:44.59)
So during COVID, you’d get these, I homeowners would get these packets of paper saying, hey, do you want to stay in your home? That’s great. Sign here. They don’t, it’s human nature. I mean, as much as we tell people, read everything, look everything over, make sure you understand what you’re signing, a lot of times they don’t. Or even if they did, they didn’t want to the risk of losing their home. So you’re talking, the average I was seeing at one point was anywhere from $40,000 $60,000 in…

in a loan that was never, you’re never billed for it. It’s tacked onto the end of your mortgage and you go to sell your house and you think you owe $200,000. Well, there’s a $40,000.

partial claim and your house that you were going to get money for, you’re now upside down in. I mean, there was a time probably six months ago that almost every day I was getting phone calls of we got to the closing table and we got really close to the closing table and this loan popped up. What is it? It’s a partial claim. So, and we’re seeing that. that’s what’s causing a lot of those newer builds, the new houses to be upside down because those partial claims people forget about them. They just know they tried to…

Dylan Silver (14:50.374)
So how are they possibly forget? How are you forgetting about $40,000, $60,000? How does that happen?

Jenny Olson-Paden (14:56.431)
It just, happens. mean, I think again, it’s human nature. think there were so many people that just wanted to save their homes that they would just sign anything that was put in front of them.

Dylan Silver (15:05.744)
So HUD was coming basically when they were getting behind HUD would give them some type of capital to catch them up or something like this.

Jenny Olson-Paden (15:13.486)
And basically it’s that creating the loan, everything that was owed, back fees, all of that, thrown into one loan and then put on the end of the first mortgage. And when you’re doing a short sale, that whole loan needs to be paid. So you can’t negotiate that loan. You have to negotiate with the first lien holder, but that partial claim has to be paid in full.

Dylan Silver (15:34.79)
So when they have this, it’s because they were trying to not get to the point where they had to lose their home. Now they’re at the point, they’re losing their home due to a short sale, and now they have to pay this thing which they were trying to save their home.

Jenny Olson-Paden (15:47.692)
Yeah, like a loan modification. Yeah. I mean, it was just, was, it was a retention. It was a retention piece. And in theory, I mean, it’s in theory, it works. I mean, you know, yeah, you would think, but unfortunately, I think with COVID, there were so many people that had been not making their mortgage payment. And it just, it just piled on. So we’re going to start seeing as people are selling, we’re going to start seeing those come up. And I think it’s going to be,

Dylan Silver (15:57.274)
helps you,

Jenny Olson-Paden (16:15.948)
I think it’s going to be really interesting.

Dylan Silver (16:17.816)
Well, well, Jenny, for what it’s worth, I think you’re probably the one of the top if not the top short sale experts in this whole area, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, I don’t I know nobody. I’ve been doing this for two years. As a wholesaler. I know nobody who’s stopped multiple within days or you talk about hours from auction that is almost incredible. I’d say almost almost unheard of right so

Congrats on your success and to your continued success. Jenny, we are coming up on time here though. Where can folks go if they maybe want to learn more about your business or if they’d like to get in contact with you or if they’re facing maybe a situation like this?

Jenny Olson-Paden (16:58.19)
So I national short sell help we national short sell help calm You can find out some information really Facebook. I have a lot of different groups and post quite a bit of stuff on there and Then you can always reach out via email or phone and I like I said, I’m a short sell nerd So I love talking, you know, anybody has questions anybody has anything they want to talk about man. I can talk all day

Dylan Silver (17:24.208)
Jenny, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Jenny Olson-Paden (17:27.064)
Thanks for having me.